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gone through many of these progressive alternations of opinion, but has for some cause or other stopped short of the true view legitimately terminating the inquiry, would be further from it in the mere enunciation of his sentiments, but in the state of his mind far nearer to it, than he who has not examined the subject at all, and is right by accident. Thus it happens, men are cheerful and secure from ignorance of the evils of life; and they are secure, again, from seeing the remedy of the evils; and, on the other hand, they are desponding from seeing the evils without the remedy: so that we must never say that an individual is right, merely on the ground of his holding an opinion which happens to be true, unless he holds it in a particular manner; that is, under those conditions, and with that particular association of thought and feeling, which in fact is the interpretation of it.

That superficial judgment, which happens to be right without deserving to be so, is condemned in the text. The error of the prophets and priests there spoken of consisted, not in promising a cure for the wounded soul, but in healing the hurt of the daughter of God's people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, before they had ascertained either the evil or the remedy. The Gospel is in its very name a message of peace, but it must never be separated from the bad tidings of our fallen nature, which it reverses; and he who speaks of the state of the world in a sanguine way, may indeed be an advanced Christian, but he may

also be much less even than a proselyte of the gate; and if his security and peace of mind be merely the calm of ignorance, surely the men whom he looks down upon as narrow-minded and superstitious, whose religion consists in fear not in love, shall go into the kingdom of heaven before him. We are reminded of this important truth by the order of our ecclesiastical year. Easter Day, our chief Festival, is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they, and they only, who sow in tears, shall reap in joy.

Remarks such as these are scarcely necessary, as far as we of this place are concerned, who, through God's blessing, are teachers of His truth, and "by reason of use have our senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Yet it is impossible not to observe, and it is useful to bear in mind, that mankind at large is not wiser or better than heretofore; rather, that it is an especial fault of the present day, to mistake the false security of the man of the world for the composure, cheerfulness, and benevolence of the true Christian; while all the shades of character between these two, though indefinitely more deserving of our respect than the former of them, I mean the superstitious, the bigot, the intolerant, and the fanatic, are thrust out of the way as inhuman and offensive, merely because their knowledge of themselves is more exact than their apprehension of the Gospel, and their zeal for God's honour more energetic than their love of mankind.

This in fact is the fault incident to times of political peace and safety, when the world keeps well together, no motions stirring beneath it, to disturb the continuity of its surface, which for the time presents to us a consistent and finished picture. When the laws of a country are upheld and obeyed, and property secure, the world appears to realize that vision of constancy and permanence which it presented to our youthful imagination. Human nature appears more amiable than it really is, because it is not tried with disappointments; more just, because it is then its interest to respect the rights of others; more benevolent, because it can be so without self-denial. The warnings contained in the historical Scriptures, concerning the original baseness and corruption of the heart, are, in the course of time, neglected; or rather these very representations are adduced as a proof how much better the world now is than it was once; how much more enlightened, refined, intellectual, manly; and this, not without some secret feeling of disrespect towards the writers of the plain facts recorded in the Bible, as if, even were the case so bad as they make it appear, it had been more judicious and humane to have said nothing about it.

But, fairly as this superficial view of human nature answers in peaceable times; speciously as it may argue, innocently as it may experimentalize, in the rare and short-lived intervals of a nation's tranquillity; yet, let persecution or tribulation arise, and forthwith its imbecility is discovered. It is but a theory; it

cannot cope with difficulties; it imparts no strength or loftiness of mind; it gains no influence over others. It is at once shattered and crushed in the stern conflict of good and evil; disowned, or rather overlooked, by the combatants on either side, and vanishing, no one knows how or whither.

The opinions alluded to in the foregoing remarks, when assuming a definite doctrinal basis, will be found to centre in Socinianism or Theophilanthropism, the name varying according as it admits or rejects the authority of Scripture. And the spirit of this system will be found to infect great numbers of men, who are unconscious of the origin and tendency of their opinions. The essential dogmas of Socinianism are such as these; that the rule of Divine government is one of benevolence, and nothing but benevolence; that evil is but remedial and temporary; that sin is of a venial nature; that repentance is a sufficient atonement for it; that the moral sense is substantially but an instinct of benevolence, and that doctrinal opinions do not influence the character or prospects, nor deserve our serious attention. On the other hand, sentiments of this character are evidently the animating principle of the false cheerfulness, and the ill-founded hope, and the blind charitableness, which have already been assigned to the man of the world.

In order to illustrate the untenableness of such positions as have just been adduced, and hence to show, by way of instance, the shallowness and

feebleness of the minds which maintain them, their real feebleness in all practical matters, plausibly or loudly as they may speak during the hour of tranquillity in which they display themselves, it may be useful to make some remarks on what appears to be the real judgment of God upon human sin, as far as it is discernible by the light of nature; not as if anything new could be said on the subject, but in order to remind ourselves of truths which are peculiarly important in these times.

The consideration chiefly adduced by the advocate for the absolute, unmixed benevolence of the Divine government, and for the venial nature of sin according to the provisions of that government, is an à priori argument, founded on an appeal to a supposed instinct of our nature. It has before now been put familiarly thus: "Is there any man living who would not, if he could, accomplish the final restitution and eternal happiness of every individual? and are we more benevolent than God?" Or, again, the same general argument is sometimes stated more cautiously as follows; that "no man can be in a perfectly right state of mind, who, if he consider general happiness at all, is not ready to acknowledge that a good man must regard it as being in its own nature the most desirable of all objects; and that any habitual disposition clearly discerned to be, in its whole result, at variance with general happiness, is unworthy of being cultivated, or fit to be rooted out; that accordingly, we are compelled to attribute God's whole government to

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